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Candace Calloway Whiting has studied and trained dolphins, seals, and orca whales. She is currently a volunteer at the Center for Whale Research at Friday Harbor.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..

Springer’s story started a little more than a decade ago when her mother died and she was separated from her family of British Columbia of Northern Resident orcas. She found her way down to Puget Sound – thin, hungry, and lonely – and set off a debate on how to help her. A few voices […]
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“1,742 Comments Received”. At 6:20 a.m. on June 26th there were just 367 comments on whether on not the government should consider the right of the captive Southern Resident orca, Lolita, to be listed as endangered as is the rest of her family. (Read more here). Two days later when the comment period closed, the […]
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As part of the Ocean Awareness Training (OAT) workshop that is periodically offered in Hawaii, the current session’s participants were able to visit the University of Hawaii’s Marine Research lab on Coconut Island. It turns out that the island is rich with history, including the fact that the opening sequence to the TV series ‘Gilligan’s Island‘ was filmed […]
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“We just had the most amazing trip … L25, Ocean Sun, scared a fish out from under the boat and teamed up with L41, Mega, to take it down”. SpringTide Whale Tours On June 18th, the Victoria, B.C. SpringTide Whale Tours reported watching Ocean Sun (L 25) the mother of the captive orca Lolita, catch fish […]
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Chances are, the dolphins we see jumping through hoops in amusement parks everywhere may have undetected injuries, causing them pain as they are forced to entertain us. They are plagued by dental and skeletal injuries in both wild and captive circumstances, but interestingly – although not surprisingly – the dolphins heal significantly better in the […]
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Even though the young orca in the video above is likely being cued and rewarded for imitating people, it shows the whales’ remarkable similarity to humans in that the orcas possess the ability to copy what they observe – and in this case, the behavior of another species (humans) behind a glass barrier where […]
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Hands down, Seaworld is the most well equipped and well-funded organization to rescue ill and injured marine life, a fact that even the most ardent animal activist will concede. While by now it is well understood that Seaworld cherry picks and keeps the rescued animals according to what is beneficial to the corporate needs and […]
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Yesterday the Center for Whale Research reported that two adult female orcas are now dead. While both were senior members of the Southern Resident orcas and no longer able to bear calves, their roles in the orca culture nonetheless were important. The most disturbing fact about the death of one of the females is that […]
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While captive orcas all lead miserable lives, the breeding policies and forced separations may make life harder for the females. The males are sub-dominant in the studied wild orca cultures, and among the Southern Resident orcas, they remain with their mothers their entire lives, so a case could be made that psychologically the forced separations […]
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Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..

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